I had no idea where we were going that Monday night in 1976. When you are a 12 year old growing up in Northwest Detroit, you got excited just hearing "Put on your coat! We goin to McDonald's!"

So that Monday night as I got dressed I was in eager anticipation of a BIg Mac. They didnt have 'extra value meals' back then. A Big Mac was 'XTRA" enough! We climbed into our father's burgandy Riveria and started our trek down I-10, The LODGE. After 20 minutes of me naming all the landmarks as I was prone to do(my father would have me give directions to anywhere in the city a visitor wanted to go), I began to see the ominous sight of the Penobscot Building.
"Oh , we going downtown", I thought. I dare not say it out loud or else I might wake up. I loved going downtown. (still do...but i digress)

Then we hit I-75, The Fisher. You can always tell people who were ACTUALLY from Detroit by having them name THE FIVE FINGERS or the names of the Interstates. And as we rolled toward Michigan Ave and Trumbell, I noticed ALL THE CARS. CARS EVERYWHERE!!! THEN, I noticed the people. (Hey ...Its the Motor City...YOU always notice the CARS first!!)

Then >>only then , I began to realize. We goin to Tiger Stadium!! And we goin to see THE BIRD!! O ..MY..GOD!!! My father noticed my face and I saw that wry smile of satisfaction hit his lips. There is nothing liking seeing the look of gratification that a person can give a child. (In the back of my mind, I thought "I hope I'm not dying!)
When you enter Tiger Stadium, the first thing that hits you is THE SMELL. Not just ONE smell. It's a combination of hot dogs, cigars, Pabst blue ribbon, Better Made Chips, an old man's pipe and even the restrooms!! LOL You walk in and everything seems so HUGE. You hear someone's AM (no FM) radio and there's the sound of Ernie harwell DESCRIBING what you are seeing!!

We went to our seats that I will always remember. right centerfield, bottom deck, 4 rows from the fence, less than 100' from Ron LeFlore!!!

Every seat was taken. Then you look over the First base line and you see it: ABC MONDAY NIGHT BASEBALL IS HERE!! And there's HOW-ard CO-sell. And I think keith jackson was doing play by play. Can It get any better than this.
THE BIRD!
You watched him in the bullpen. You watched him in the dugout. You watched him as he ran to the mound. He smoothed out to the mound, carefully, as not to offend the groundskeepers. (especially Dancing Willie(right?) who swept his broom in the 6th inning like he was Joe Tex!)

What stuck with me? Ron LeFlore stole 2 bases. Rusty Staub choking up on the bat. And the great YANKees in town only to lose 5-1 as The Bird goes all 9 innings like a whirling dirvish and we COULD NOT LEAVE!!! We stood and clapped and clapped as they say it was 47000 people but it had to be 52000, the stadium max. The old place shook like only one time i ever saw after...When Kirk Gibson hit the 3 run homer off Goose Gossage in the 84 World series. THAT shook the state!!

So at 54 young years old, he is gone. Mark Fidrych. The greatest oneseason ICON in ALL of sports history. He did nothing wrong for 6 months of my life.

Thank you, Mark. For giving the smile that when mentioning your name and that night NEVER leaves my face.

I really enjoyed reading this (again) HQ!
(thanks for re-posting this Bill)

I'm at work and I'm seriously emotional after reading that.
...thinking of my late father and Tiger Stadium.
Man... I really get choked up whenever I think about going to Tiger Stadium with my Dad during that era. I was so young but I remember every detail as HQ desribes it.

...the smells.
...the sight of the outfield grass.
...Herbie Redmond doin' the broom dance during the 7th inning stretch.
...the buzz of the crowd when Ron LeFlore would get on-base (cuz everyoneknew he was gonna steal!)

This is from Pistonsforum.com, and is a post by webz, a long time Australian member who has been traveling the world, and took in the 2008 Detroit Pistons season ender in Cleveland. His first NBA road game, following his first NBA home game the night before against Minnesota.

The following is my account of one of the best Pistons experiences I’ve ever had. It will contain little to no analysis about the game, so if you aren’t interested in hearing the excited ramblings of a Pistons fan you might want to skip this. I’ll leave the game analysis to the Lee, Dre, D4E and company.

My first Pistons game last night against Minny at home was pretty special. But I think this tops that.

Some may say that this was just a meaningless game. Some who watched it from the comfort of their couches may say LeBron and Z weren’t playing so there was no feeling. These people are probably right. But to me it wasn’t a meaningless game…

· Maybe it’s because I’m still pumped about watching the game live…
· Maybe it’s because I watched the entire 2nd half 6 rows back right behind the Pistons bench…
· Maybe it’s because I went into a hostile environment and went home a smug winner…
· Maybe it’s all of those things. But to me, this game was every fans dream. (or maybe just mine ).

So I ended up getting into the game. I still hadn’t decided about going and it was 5:30pm, but ended up getting the bus into town anyway. Tashawn kinda convinced me that if I couldn’t get a cheap Cavs ticket I could always check out some baseball (Tigers-Indians).

I watched the first quarter from a Sports Bar & Grill on 4th St about 2 blocks from the arena while eating my dinner and having a beer. No LeBron. I decided I could try and use this to help get a discount from the scalpers I was to meet in a few minutes time.

Talked to a few scalpers who waved me off when I said I only wanted to spend $20-30. They were peddling courtside seats. Walked a bit further and found a couple more guys. They were trying to sell me a nosebleed ticket on the end of the court for $40. I was feeling pretty cocky cos I really wasn’t bothered if I saw the game or not. (The stein of beer I had probably helped too )

I bargained one down to $25 using my ‘But LeBron isn’t playing, I ain’t paying THAT much!’

The guy was starting to get sick of me and he said, ‘Look, you’re just one person. All you need is to get in the door and you could just sneak down to a better seat.’

I thought, ‘You know, you’re right. Let’s try that.’

Got inside and went to my allocated seat. It was rubbish. But I decided to stay there for the 2nd Quarter and scope out some kick-ass seats down lower. I kept my eye on a few that were never filled during the whole Q.

At half time I went down. If I got stopped I was going to use my line of ‘I just want to take some photos’. It was half time after all, it should seem innocent enough.

Well, it was not necessary. Security was non-existent and I just walked on down and sat myself 6 rows from the court, directly behind the Pistons bench. Sweeeeeeet. It was a few minutes into the start of the 2nd half before I relaxed and knew I was safe. From then on it was just fantastic.

I took some photos which I will post a bit later on. I could see all the guys on the bench. It was interesting to watch them interacting with each other. I noticed the whole time I was there I did not see anyone say one word to Cheik Samb (or vice versa). He truly looked like a loner at the end of the bench and I felt a bit sorry for him that he was invisible to the rest of his teammates. Nice suit though.

Meanwhile Sheed was being Sheed, throwing things at Maxiell while Flip was addressing them during a timeout, then hiding behind Terry Porter. Playing with the fans, making funny gestures to the camera when he appeared on the big screen.

Side note: Hayes went to the bench in the 2nd half and Arnie Kander was working on his left shoulder. He didn’t look too bothered about it and he checked back into the game later on, but remember - you heard your Pistons injury report here first! Tay also appeared to be limping slightly when he walked off at the end of the game.

So, the game itself was a gem from the Zoo crew. All game we were just hanging around 5-7 points down, the crowd seemed pretty confident of a victory. Whenever we made a sweet play, all these people were saying, ‘Who the hell was that?’ (Stuckey), or ‘Who keeps hitting that baseline jumper?’ (Afflalo)

But to see that mental change in the Zoo crew during the 4th quarter was pretty special. You could just see the intensity pick up. Herrmann was a bundle of lightning caught in a Gatorade cup. Stuckey was a hot knife scything through Cavalier butter. Dixon was nailing cold-blooded dagger after dagger…

Then when Walter nailed that 3pt bomb from 40 feet out I just couldn’t hold back a loud ‘Whaaaaa-ha-hoooooooooo!!!! Oh MYYY!!’ Up until that point I had disguised pretty well to anyone around me that I was a Piston fan. I thought they might alert security or something about my stolen seat. Haha.

After that, they knew. And I didn’t care. I was too busy enjoying it.

The crowd were stunned. All of a sudden they were down. A lot… and then it was all over. I hung around after the game for a bit to let the crowd leave and watched Afflalo give his interview to George and Special K. Then walked through downtown Cleveland with a big smile on my face and went home.

It was a pretty special night. If you bothered to read this far, thanks. I’m happy to share my

Pistons experiences with some of you guys. I’ll be back at the Palace on Sunday for Game 1. Only a Pistons win there might be able to top this.

THREE great posts ..Thanks for bringing em back, Bill.
But some of my favorite posts and comments were during our rivalry with The Spurs and The Cavs by our women- Barbara San Antone, Ny Piston and Aurora "Kimmee Lights!!!" I miss hearing from them aaaall.

Sad but true, nobody could make this up.
Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets.
I asked for a half dozen nuggets.
'We don't have half dozen nuggets,' said the
teenager at the counter.
'You don't?' I replied.
'We only have six, nine, or twelve,' was the reply.
'So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?'
'That's right.'
So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets
(Unbelievable but sadly true...)
(Must have been the same one I asked for sweetener,
and she said they didn't have any, only Splenda and sugar.)

TWO
I was checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those 'dividers' that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed.
After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the
'divider', looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it.
Not finding the bar code, she said to me, 'Do you know how much this is?'
I said to her 'I've changed my mind; I don't think I'll buy that today.'
She said 'OK,' and I paid her for the things and left.
She had no clue to what had just happened.

( But the lady behind me had a big smirk on her face as I left)

THREE
A woman at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly.
When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM 'thingy.'

(Keep shuddering!!)

FOUR
I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. 'Do you need some help?' I asked. She replied, 'I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?'
'Hmmm, I don't know. Do you have an alarm, too?' I asked.
'No, just this remote thingy,' she answered,
handing it and the car keys to me. As I
took the key and manually unlocked the door, I
replied, 'Why don't you drive over there and
check about the batteries. It's a long walk....'

PLEASE just lay down before you hurt yourself !!!

FIVE
Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, 'I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?' 'Just use paper from the photocopier', the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five 'blank' copies.

THREE great posts ..Thanks for bringing em back, Bill.
But some of my favorite posts and comments were during our rivalry with The Spurs and The Cavs by our women- Barbara San Antone, Ny Piston and Aurora "Kimmee Lights!!!" I miss hearing from them aaaall.

Mr. Cheever was hit in the face with something the mascot fires from a cannon into the stands, causing his chardonnay to splash onto his sportcoat and trousers. Not even going to get into the game itself, but that sums it up. The entire experience was an absolute shambles.

"Me and bicycling. I spent about 3 years of my life altogether throwing newpapers, mostly off a bicycle. Being ambidextrous, I could do a street in one pass, rolling and tossing as I went. Pretty efficient. I bicycled so much, I got to where I could put a three speed in 3rd gear and pedal all out for 2 straight hours, right to the max that the bike could take. I could strip out the gears at any time in any gear if I did not limit how hard I pushed those pedals. There were stretches of my life where I virtually lived on a bicycle. I did my routes, collected my routes, and went from here to there, all on a bike. I did have to use the car on Sunday mornings to get the newspapers to my route, as the Sunday paper was about 4 times thicker than the next heaviest day, but otherwise, I just kept that car parked in the driveway and pedaled to wherever I went.
These days, except for using a stationary bike in the winter in a continual failing attempt to keep the blubber off in the winter, I don't go anywhere on a bike. Hey, Flint ain't that safe a place anymore."

Seriously, I started playing when I was 11. I was terrible. But I loved to play, begged the old man to put up a hoop up on the front of the garage.

Between 13~15 I went to St. Clair College for the one and two week basketball camp summer sessions. My folks could afford it at the time, and it kept me out of their hair. I was a guard (too short to play with the trees) and really enjoyed doing drills, working on basic footwork and form. Twice I was nearly thrown out for hard fouling during league play. There was never any free chili as I got way too rough. It was the Bad Boy in me. I idolized the Pistons. All of them, but particularly Mahorn and Laimbeer. They beat you up and beat you on the scoreboard. That kind of aggression appeals to a young man.

I'd play some pickup with the other guys in the neighborhood but my shot wasn't very consistent and I was your typical Darvin Ham type energy guy. Still loved playing though. The passes, taking your man off the dribble, posting and selling an up fake for the easy lay in. Poetry.

I'm moved to NZ when I was 15 and played in high school for a Div 2 team. The top Div 2 team moved to Div 1, and likewise the worst Div 1 team fell to the lower ranks. We made it out of Div 2 my first year. I was probably playing 3~5 hours a day. Study and shoot hoops. Dribble to the bus stop.

Then I got into a band and basketball took a backseat.

From 17~19 I played recreationally with friends, one summer it seemed we played every day. A lot of half court 3 on 3, some full court 5 on 5.

I haven't picked up a ball in a long time. Always wanted to volunteer as a coach but the free time has never been there.

If there was a player I was most like, it was Mark Jackson. I loved to pass and play defense (to cover up for the fact I wasn't good at getting my own shot). I was the ultimate Bad Boy fan though. Had Aguirre and Dantley's FT routine down to a T. Tried to shoot jumpers like Dumars. Hit people like Mahorn. Instigate like Laimbeer.

Played football, rugby and tennis but none of them had the appeal of basketball. Always 100% effort. I would play until it was dark or someone made me stop.

stat sprocket: How Many Minutes Are Too Many Minutes?
Don't winning teams' top players always play a lot of minutes?

by dba
August 13, 2006

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the Pistons’ top six players played more minutes than the top six from any other NBA team last season. Using a measure of equivalent games, the 05/06 Pistons played more than 90 regular season games.

O.k., fine. So they played a lot of minutes. Don’t winning teams’ top players always play a lot of minutes? Well, let’s see. For this comparison I picked dynasty teams from the past 25 NBA seasons. These were teams with extraordinary three season runs, either winning or playing for the NBA title in each season, including (using data from the regular season only)…

Some overall findings…
• Over the past two seasons the Pistons concentrated minutes among the top six players to an unprecedented extent.
• The ’04 championship run looks very different from the last two seasons.
• Aggregating across the three seasons in each run, the current Pistons team again leads the ranking in concentration of minutes.
• Teams that three-peat concentrate minutes in the top six much less than those who don’t.
• Dynasty teams can shake the roster up between seasons and still remain at the top of their game.
• Nobody else here mixes in the bench like Phil Jackson.

Comparing Individual Seasons

The table below compares the number of minutes played by the top six players for each of the teams and seasons listed above. The top ranked team in number of minutes played? The 05/06 Detroit Pistons. The second ranked team in number of minutes played? The 04/05 Detroit Pistons. The team that won a championship back in ‘04? Ranks 12th in terms of minutes played by the top six. Could there be a pattern here?

The top six Bulls players from 96/97 collectively played 2,684 fewer minutes than last season’s Pistons despite more minutes from Jordan and Pippen than from any individual Pistons player in any of the past three seasons. Given that the average top six player across all these teams and seasons averages 31.5 minutes per game, this means the 05/06 Pistons top six played 14.2 more equivalent games than the Bulls during the regular season.

Now let’s aggregate each team’s three season run and do comparisons. Which team’s top six played the most minutes across the three season run? Yep, you guessed it. The 04/05/06 Detroit Pistons. They out-minute the short-benched Celtics, their arch rival Lakers, the Bad Boys, the Shaq Lakers, and both Bulls’ sprints. Compared to the Bulls, the Pistons top six played 28 more equivalent games over a three year period, 5,284 additional player minutes.

That Pistons / Bulls difference comes out to more than 21 minutes a game taken away from the top six, 3.5 minutes per player per game. Even though the difference between 32 MPG and 36 MPG doesn’t seem like all that much, over the course of long seasons and even longer multi-season runs, it really starts to add up. More importantly, 21 minutes a game can be used to adequately develop non-starters into productive players.

It’s interesting to note that the current Pistons won one championship during the three years. The Celtics, Showtime Lakers, and Bad Boys, ranked 2, 3, and 4, won two of three. All the three-peats are at the bottom of the ranking. No matter who your top six guys are, after three long regular seasons and three long playoff seasons, six guys don’t consistently win championships if they are the only ones you play. Also interesting to note that Phil Jackson coached all of the three-peat teams, teams built around two superstars and a big and revolving supporting cast.

Player Consistency

The measure in the table below is the percentage of minutes played by the same players across seasons. If no player changed across two seasons and each played the exact number of minutes the value would be 100%. If no player played in both seasons the value would be 0%.

The Bulls, Bad Boys, and Showtime Lakers are all models of consistency. Jerry Krause found a good combination and by and large stuck with it for each season within each three-peat. Jerry West was able to shake things up in between each of the three-peat seasons and still put a consistent and winning team on the floor. Joe D tried the West model, but either through the wrong mix of players or the revolving door on the coaching position, couldn’t consistently deliver the same results.

In the table below I look at the number of players who player various numbers of minutes measured two ways – minutes per game played, and total season minutes divided by 82.

Note that the 92/93 Bulls only had four players who averaged more than 20 minutes per game, and eleven who averaged more than ten across the whole season. Only the Shaq Lakers come close to this even distribution of minutes. Both teams, besides being coached by Phil Jackson, relied on two superstars (Jordan and Pippen, Shaq and Kobe) for heavy minutes and a lot of role players who played significant numbers of minutes.

I miss when we used to get more than 2 or 3 posts in the game threads that were about the game. I can't remember the last time I actually cared enough to post about a Piston game ( besides commenting on Drummond ) . I miss that. Maybe this year.. - This will be the year we care again!!!!!